Britney Spears’ longtime manager Larry Rudolph has resigned. [JustJared]
So what is happening between Angelina Jolie & The Weeknd? [LaineyGossip]
Jim-Bob & Michelle Duggar speak about TLC cancelling their show. [Dlisted]
Shawn Mendes wants you to look at his collection of chest hairs. [OMG Blog]
Addison Rae threw a party for the 4th of July. [Egotastic]
Richard Madden looks beautiful in these Calvin Klein ads. [Tom & Lorenzo]
I can’t believe they’re still making Purge movies. [Pajiba]
I want the world for Bowen Yang. [Towleroad]
Here’s an explainer on the ESPN/Rachel Nichols/racism issue. [Jezebel]
Surfside residents are trying to come together as a community. [Buzzfeed]
I fear for Brit. This is all feeling a little too Anna Nicole Smith for me to feel comfortable. Brit’s ‘boyfriend’ is out for his own spotlight. I don’t see any ‘love’ between them in photos.
I do too, You Know Me. At first I thought he was retiring, but no it’s Britney! I loved his letter were he stated that he isn’t involved in the conservatorship and isn’t aware of its inner circle. Why shouldn’t she retire? She is only working to keep the smooches fed and her father Jaime living the high life off of her. Now that she retires, you can bet her attorney will asked to be recused as the money will stop flowing in.
YES! I also wish/hope Brit would take a LONG break from social media and the storm that follows. I don’t believe most of the Free Brittney people are sincere & are as bad as those controlling her. Taking a year off in a nice cottage on a private lake in the middle of Nowhere, USA would help. I’m not sure Brittney would have the fortitude to close out her social media and just be a mom during that time. Fame is an addiction all on its own. Very sad.
Wow. Larry looks…that’s a Coke and a smile. Good lord
HAHAHAHA
All I can see in the top photo is an optical illusion where Britney is carrying a bouquet of a woman’s head.
Yeah. Didn’t Larry Rudolph used to look somewhat attractive? Jeesh!
Her attorney just resigned as well.
Good. Maybe now she can pick her own. Someone who will actually do what they are supposed to do and defend her interests.
Under the conservatorship, I don’t think she’s actually “allowed” to hire her own attorney. It’s all so messed up.
My understanding is that after doctor shopping to find someone willing to declare that she was mentally unfit (the first two refused), someone checked the ‘dementia’ box on the form. That automatically rendered her unable to have a say in choosing her own attorney.
Collecting money off a woman who has no say in paying you but who has clearly said she does not wish to work – is a very poor look indeed
He looks trustworthy and healthy and not on drugs at all.
😂
Hahaha – I love this!
Definitely nothing wrong with this guy at all!
Lol!
Here let me reinterpret Larry’s statement: I can’t make money off of her anymore if she refuses to perform or retire. And now that everything is out in the open, it’s going to be harder for us to force her to work. Plus, I’ve got other clients that I am still taking advantage of.”
I’ve worked in mental health, advocated for mental health services for communities, and some of the comments that I’ve been reading about Britney and her much needed conservatorship just angers me. She is a human being who has a right to make decisions on her own life and how she receives care. Or did I miss something here? Is she so mentally incapacitated that she can’t be allowed to have another baby, BUT she IS healthy enough to be FORCED to perform on stage for money? That’s OK to the conservatorship just as long as millions keep coming in, which BTW, just ADDS to any mental anguish she may have. Cause at this point, she’s literally be pimped out for money.
I have no sympathy for any of her predatory circle of family, friends, colleague, lawyers, doctors, and other enabling leeches. They’ve turned her care into a profit for themselves. I’ve heard rumors that the ACLU were willing to represent her. And even if it’s false, I still would love to see that happen and make a landmark case out of this as an individual’s basic human and civil rights have been taken away from her–using her mental health against her to do so.
So, bye Larry. Don’t let the gilded door hit your ass on the way out.
Have you seen the movie “I care a lot”? There are tons of cases of people using conservatorships to cash in, it is truly awful.
Yes exactly!
I can no longer look at any footage of her performances from late 2008 on. All I can ask when I see that stuff now is, was she threatened with not being able to see her own children if she refused to do this performance or that one?
I think the ACLU tweeted themselves that they can help her. I’d run to the phone if it were me. At least them she can trust.
Does she have access to a phone that no one else controls?
I have mixed feelings on this.
On the one hand, I don’t think Britney is well mentally. That is the only way to explain how the court would have let this go on for so long, and it seems like the conservatorship did achieve the goal of protecting her from very, very bad actors (anyone remember Sam Lufti?) who were isolating her and putting her at severe risk of physical harm.
On the other hand, I still don’t understand why Jamie wouldn’t be replaced at this point, since his role seems to be triggering pain for her that is unique to him. Especially if reports are true about him verbally abusing her (and even if not, after physically abusing one of her sons). It just makes zero sense to me. Why isn’t there some sort of middle ground here?
I just don’t get it.
I’m with you. I know a lot of people want to see the conservatorship fully lifted but I worry that Britney would go downhill fast. I became more concerned when she said she wants it lifted without being assessed by doctors. I definitely think whether it’s lifted should be decided by a medical team and nobody else. An independent doctor should be court appointed to review her history and current state of mind, imo.
But I also think her dad needs to go far far away. He should not be at all involved in her life. He’s unfit and abusive. And the conservatorship sounds like it should be eased at the very least.
She’s been abused by doctors who have prescribed her medication against her wishes and has been sent to a rehab facility as retaliation after she refused the second Vegas residency. That was in her testimony. I can 100 percent understand why she would never trust a doctor ever again after what they have done to her.
JayNay- I can see why she would mistrust doctors in general. In a healthy situation, she would be able to choose her own doctor and contribute to decisions like which medications she takes to manage her mental illness.
Good lord. If you want to read something, read this piece by Ronan Farrow:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/american-chronicles/britney-spears-conservatorship-nightmare
Jamie needs to be fired out of a cannon into the sun. I can’t believe they wouldn’t appoint a new conservator at this point.
Thank you! I wish everyone would read it. How this was allowed to unfold and be perpetuated for so long is absolutely chilling.
Just look at the math. The attorney her father hired for her is paid $520,000/ year. Britney get’s an allowance of $2,000/week. That’s $104,000/year. She’s essentially making 20% of what her lawyer makes, just from her, each year. Her father, as conservator, is entitled to 1.5% of her Vegas residency, for which she gets paid $300,000/night. That means, he’s making $4,500/ NIGHT off of her.
This is disgusting. She is forced to pay her abuser to abuse her. And the legal system to which she should be able to turn for help, just keeps smiling and telling him what a good job he’s doing. This has always been about the money. They’ve used her as a cash cow her entire life and don’t want to give that up. Is there anything in her past that would lead someone to believe she is a physical danger to herself or others? Everything I’ve read is all about the money. If she’s not at risk of physically harming herself or others, it’s her business if she blows every last dime she’s ever earned.
Yea I read this as well, it is horrible how it all went down.
Thank you for the link to that Farrow article. I’m enraged!
We don’t actually know that Sam Lufti was one of the bad actors. If you read Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino’s article, you can see that he was helping her rebel against the noose her father was tightening around her.
Now, he might have had his own agenda, but I wouldn’t buy into the “Evil Sam Lufti” narrative that Jamie used to get her into that conservatorship.
Eh, I’ve got serious reservations about Sam Lufti. He has popped up around other women in distress, and it wasn’t just the father that had a problem with him, her mother was also really concerned. Totally in the realm of possibility that both he and Jamie were bad.
I think Lufti was bas, and Jamie and Lynne Spears are bad, because all of them want her money.
Lufti was absolutely an opportunist. But Jamie is worse.
I read the same article and Lufti definitely does not come off as the good guy.
@aud @superashes
I vehemently disagree with people who still somehow can reason that Britney still needs to be ‘taken care’ of and ‘would go downhill fast’ WTF? What are these assumptions based on exactly? She was never incapacitated to the point of needing a conservatorship, to begin with. Do not believe stories that have been in the public record forever at this point, that were planted by her abusive family.
I sign on to the Ronan Farrow piece as a must-read for anyone who thinks this horrific situation she is in is somehow necessary. Read it!
I made it clear that I believe that she needs an independent assessment to determine the best course of action. And I do believe that the conservatorship has gone way too far and her family has abused it so they can abuse her.
But I also believe Britney has legitimate mental health issues and there needs to be a plan to get her help if things go downhill. I think she should have control over her schedule, work, money, etc. However, I hesitate when it comes to her medical decisions (not reproductive, only related to psychiatric care) because someone needs to step in if she is endangering herself and obviously her family can’t be trusted. And I don’t trust her boyfriend either.
Recently? Her rant because she is completely convinced the paparazzi are photoshopping her to look heavier when her own photos keep getting edited to make her look smaller? She’s had multiple photoshop fails and she’s ABSOLUTELY convinced they’re making her look heavier in normal photos.
Have you looked at her Instagram feed? Her captions are incredibly incoherent.
Healthy people don’t tend to cause a standoff and for one of the kids to be taken to hospital over a custody trade off. Healthy people don’t drive around with a child on their lap. Healthy people can put their phone down when driving.
That said – the conservatorship needs to be CLOSELY examined and possibly thrown out entirely. I do think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have her set up with a proper financial advisor so she doesn’t just get manipulated by the Lynne Spears and Sam Luftis of the world and run out of funds to care for herself.
Read Rowan Farrow’s article in the New Yorker. They initial conservatorship was rushed, flimsy as hell, possibly shady ($$), and based on very little in terms of her behaviour. It’s entirely possible she was suffering post-natal depression and some other issues exacerbated by her highly stressful life. However, there was NOWHERE near enough to get a conservatorship without corrupt forces at play. They doctor-shopped to find someone who said she needed it, and even that doctor has since stated that he cannot understand why she is still under it. Her entire life is controlled, including her meds and access to phones. All of her staff were hired by her father and report on her to him. She is quite likely extremely depressed – in large part due to the horrific treatment she has endured. This is a disgrace and a massive human rights violation. Regardless of mental health issues, no one should live like this.
“ That is the only way to explain how the court would have let this go on for so long,”
No, it really isn’t the only explanation. The courts get it wrong all the time. Judges aren’t paragons or virtue or even intelligence. Conservatorships are rife with abuse, and frankly, the courts rarely do anything to stop it. It took my family years – almost a decade – to get my grandmother out the abusive conservatorship my uncle’s wife set up. And that was with people advocating for her. If she’d been like Britney – she would’ve died broke after my “aunt” fleeced her for every cent.
There’s a New Yorker article about all this by Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino that was just published over the weekend. I’m only halfway through, but it’s a well done piece so far.
I have read it too, it’s good, and it’s scaring, this woman was robbed of her rights, and exploited under the threat of “you will never see your children again”.
During the lockdown I have watched some footage of her Vegas shows on Youtube, and I often wondered why her moves were so “letargic”, at the time I wondered if she had some knee injury, now I think she was too medicated to dance, but still she menaged to complete her work.
This woman is a force of nature.
For the ESPN thing, I don’t understand why people are calling racist. It sounds to me like she is ambitious and is advocating for her own advancement at the network. Are we supposed to pretend there is no new pressure to promote POC? I am not saying the host of the show in question is not talented. No one said that from what the link reports. Episodes like this leave a bad taste with everyone. Everyone is distrustful of everyone else. The person leaking the audio did not have benign intentions. For this conversation, she was talking to have boss and the audience was not the masses. I think the temperature needs to come down a notch or two and we need to find a way to stop labeling so much stuff as “racist”. There are so many negative connotations to that word and it puts people on the defensive and is used to isolate and stigmatize. It’s generally not being used constructively in layperson discourse. Fine for the academics?
It’s racist because Nichols assumed that Maria Taylor was just a racial diversity hire. Nichols specifically said ESPN was taking away “her” thing because they have a “diversity problem” and then said she understood “from the female side” of things. So, if a black woman is a separate “diversity hire” from a white woman, just what do you think Nichols was talking about?
Race.
Unlike Nichols (who is Diane Sawyer’s DIL), Maria Taylor actually played college basketball for the University of Georgia, (the SEC is no joke), and has an undergraduate degree in Broadcast Journalism and a MBA.
Maria Taylor is HIGHLY QUALIFIED to broadcast basketball games for ESPN.
Maria Taylor is MORE qualified to do that job than Nichols or most other men on that network.
Are they not allowed in a boss-subordinate relationship to even acknowledge that there is pressure to hire POC? She did not say Marcia was not qualified. That to me is like not talking about the elephant in the room, especially at a network and in sports setting where there really are shortcomings.
My overall concern is that the way all these seemingly small events play out in the media, as a community we are not bringing everyone along. We cannot make progress if we cannot bring everyone along.
The only person who injected race into the conversation is Rachel Nichols. That’s it.
Period.
Maria Taylor was already employed by ESPN. ESPN has every right to put her in a position that she is well qualified for.
Rachel Nichols had no basis to believe Taylor’s new position was related in any way, shape, or form to her race.
None. Zero. Zilch.
But people like Nichols … and you … accept at face value that a black woman is only employed because of her race.
That. Is. Racist.
She could advocate for herself without claiming something was taken from her, something she deserved, and giving to someone else, underserving, because of diversity. She could have highlighted her knowledge or ratings or anything. So I agree she has the right to advocate for herself but that’s not what she actually did. She disparaged a coworker claiming she was given a job simply because she is black.
I listened to the audio and I read the article. She does not disparage Maria. She mentions ESPN’s crappy record on diversity. Both things can be true. Marie can be talented. ESPN can have a crappy record on diversity. It’s also true that there is a culture movement underway that seeks to create broader representation of POC in the media. To think that the bosses and talent at ESPN do not consider that and more in the hiring process would be naive.
In addition to my agreement with the other people who replied to you, I would like to gently point out that you mis-named Maria Taylor twice, in two separate comments. (“Marcia” and “Marie”)
This may very well be an autocorrect issue, but please be aware that it is also a microaggression that POC deal with far too often.
Nothing to see here, just Christa being a lowkey racist troll who loves to dog whistle every time there’s a race-related article on here. Your Karen is showing.
I think she wanted to retire years ago. It seems like she just wants to relax and hang with her kids and boyfriend. I say good for her!
Larry might get a second run as a star in the series Intervention… yikes
…Larry Rudolph resigning remnded me of that scene in the movie Titanic, where the ship is going down and the “lower level” passengers try to run to safety by following the rats
‘
Exactly. There are folks dropping off this train because they can smell the stench coming from miles away, especially after Ronan Farrow’s article over the weekend. Yikes.
From what I read recently she is in a VOLUNTARY conservatorship however it basically because it was the path of least resistance to regularly seeing her kids. It started out of court ordered stuff with her incapacity. That leads me to believe she doesn’t want to go through the process of getting neuropsychological evaluations because she is behavioral and won’t participate in the evaluation fully and will show her to be a poor decision maker or she thinks she would fail and that may endanger her access to the kids. Yes it’s become a machine that has become somewhat corrupt but I think the stuff about getting access to her kids is what has kept it going.
Christa, or maybe she doesn’t want to undergo another Psych Eval bc she doesn’t trust the process. In order to get the Conservatorship in the first place, Britney saw at least three doctors. The first two refused to say that she was not capable. Her father kept going until he found a doctor who would say so. That does not instill confidence in the process or the doctors and, were I in her place, I would not be eager to undergo an evaluation with a doctor I don’t trust either.
This Conservatorship is not voluntary. She asked to have it removed and was refused so I don’t know in what way that would be considered voluntary.